Today's global economy demands effective worldwide communication. For example, manufacturers often have suppliers located across the country and around the world. Timely and effective communication between the manufacturer and suppliers can be critical to business success. In other cases, companies often assign business projects to work groups with members physically located around the world. In some situations, the work group members can belong to different organizations and/or companies. As with manufacturers and suppliers, timely and effective communication can be critical to the success of the work group.
Telecommunications and other technologies, such as email, video-conferencing, and internet meetings provide timely and effective worldwide communication twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. However, because of the difference in local time from one location to the next, certain forms of communication may not be appropriate during certain times of the day. For example, when the local time is 1700 hours on the west coast of the United States, it can be 0200 hours in Germany. Accordingly, when calling or scheduling a meeting (e.g., Internet meeting or video conference) with a business associate, it has become increasingly important to consider the business associate's local time. However, it can be difficult to effectively and efficiently ascertain and/or track the different time zones for multiple business associates in today's complex business environment.